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OTTAWA — New Democrats will have the opportunity to look before they leap.

A policy resolution on the Leap Manifesto, a document calling for radical approaches to climate change, is expected to go to a vote at the NDP’s Edmonton convention.

The resolution would allow the party to use the document, backed by prominent New Democrat activists, as a reference point for policy discussions at the 2018 convention. But it wouldn’t commit the party to adopting some of the manifesto’s more radical suggestions, like drastically limiting oil sands production, as policy.

The Leap Manifesto, released during last year’s federal election, calls for dramatic changes to Canada’s relationship with indigenous people, the end of fossil fuel subsidies and new pipeline infrastructure, and an end to all trade deals that “interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies.”

It is backed by a number of prominent Canadian academics, activists, and artists – from Charles Taylor to Naomi Klein to Alanis Morissette.

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The resolution commits NDP riding associations to debate the ideas and merits of the manifesto, and for that debate to inform the “pre-convention policy process” for the NDP’s next convention in 2018.

Toronto filmmaker and vocal Leap advocate Avi Lewis, a delegate at the Edmonton convention, said that he was happy with the resolution.

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